Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, "40 Day Dream"

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - "40 Day Dream" Lyrics

I've been sleeping for forty days and
Yeah, I know that I'm sleeping cause this dream's too amazing
She got gold doorknobs where her eyes used to be, yeah
One turn and I learned what it really means to see, yeah

Ah, It's the magical mystery kind
Ah, Must be a lie
Bye bye to the too good to be true kind of love
Oooooh I could die
Oooooh now, I could die

Oh now I've been sleeping for sixty days and
Nobody better pinch me
Bitch I swear, go crazy
She got jumper cable lips
She got sunset on her breath
I inhaled just a little bit
Now I got no fear of death

Ah, It's the magical mystery kind
Ah, Must be a lie
Bye bye to the too good to be true kind of love
Oooooh I could die
Oooooh now, I could die

Oooh Ahh Ohhh Ahh Yeah Yeah

Ah, It's the magical mystery kind
Ah, Must be a lie
Bye bye to the too good to be true kind of love
Oooooh I could die
Oooooh now, I could die

This is a great song about dreams and love.  Songs can be interpreted in many different ways just like films and even dreams themselves.  This is my interpretation of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zero's "40 Day Dream."

"40 Day Dream" is about a relationship that challenged the author's preconceived notions of love.  The first two lines of the song states that the speaker has been dreaming for 40 days and he must be dreaming because life is so amazing.  The speaker associates dreams with good things that happen and he is sure that he must be dreaming because the love he has is not realistic.  The speaker is most likely awake and is comparing the amazing love he feels to a dream.  He has not literally been sleeping for forty days, he just feels as if he has because his life is so dream-like.

The line, "She got gold doorknobs where her eyes used to be," could imply drug inducement, which is a theme in this song.  It could be said that the lovers might be using drugs which could create the dream-like feeling, as if they have been sleeping for forty days, or he could be comparing their love to drug use.  The gold doorknobs also indicate a way to access a new room or path by opening the door.  He says, "One turn and I learned what it really means to see," suggesting that their love has opened his eyes to new experiences and new possibilities that he never knew existed.

The first line in the chorus, "It's the magical mystery kind," could also be referring to drug use.  It also suggests, however, a magical, mysterious love that he thought only existed in dreams.  The love seems too good to be true so it "must be a lie," and therefore, he must be sleeping and the love must be a dream.  He says goodbye to the love because he knows that the dream will eventually fade and he will have to wake up.  He ends the chorus with the line, "I could die."  For me, this line indicates that the love he felt was so great that he does not need anything else in life -- he feels complete.

The last line of the chorus is very similar to John Keats' poem, "Ode to a Nightingale."  Keats, unlike the speaker in "40 Day Dream," suffers from heartache.  He longs to die without pain while listening to the nightingale's song.  Keats thinks death will end pain, whereas the song lyrics suggest that death would not be so terrible because he has experienced a great love. 

The chorus suggests that the speaker is in the hypnopompic state because he is trying to distinguish between a dream and the real world.  He is confused because he thinks that the love he has experienced was all a dream and that he has to say goodbye to it and wake up.  Fortunately for him, he does not have to wake up because the dream-like love was real.

The second verse states that he has been "sleeping for sixty days" because he is still experiencing the too good to be true love and has not woken up from his dream-like state.  He makes it clear that he does not want to wake up by threatening that he will go crazy if anyone tries to pinch him to prove whether he is dreaming or not.  This can be related to the hypnopompic state in which a sleeper tries to hold onto a dream while floating in-between dream and reality.  The speaker in "40 Day Dream" does not want to take any chances and wants to hold on to what he believes to be a dream for as long as possible.

The speaker goes on to say that "she has jumper cable lips."  I think he is implying that kissing her makes him feel alive, like restarting a car.  He goes on to say "she got sunset on her breath," which I think suggests the end of one thing and the beginning of another.  In this case, the end to a loveless life and the beginning of a new love-filled life.  The next line, "I inhaled just a little bit," has definite drug implications.  It is as if his lover is a drug which he has inhaled and now he has no fear of death because he is in a state of bliss and also because he has experienced the greatest love and needs nothing more out of life.

Throughout "40 Day Dream," the hypnopompic state and love work hand-in-hand.  Love itself is like the hypnopompic state because it is hard to distinguish whether the great love is real or not.  Either way, the speaker does not want the amazing feeling of love to ever end.

You can watch the music video for this song here: